Big Ten

So now that we're at the halfway point of the Big Ten's second season as a hockey conference, what is your impression of the whole reallignment (formation of Big Ten and NCHC, dissolution of CCHA, expansion of HE, merging of WCHA)? Personally I think while it is cool that we play Minnesota and Wisconsin, I miss the traditional matchups against smaller schools that makes college hockey so damn great and I hate that it all happened because of money. And additionally, fewer games are actually on TV because more are being siphoned to online platforms, which just hurts the fans from being able to more easily watch Michigan. What do others think now that we're 1.5 years in?

1. R. Pitino def. R. Pitino

The best game of college basketball’s opening weekend – one of those now-customary military appreciation contests in a weird venue (a hangar in Puerto Rico this time) – featured Rick Pitino’s Louisville Cardinals and his son, Richard’s Minnesota Golden Gophers. It was a predictably sloppy game, partially because of the heat that required several stoppages in play to wipe perspiration off of the court, partially because it was the season-opener for both teams.

In any case, it was an ugly game. There were a combined 60 fouls in the game, the two teams combined for more made free throws (49) than made field goals (45), and half-court offense for both teams looked like far more difficult than it should have. All of these early-season gimmick locales effectively dilute the quality of play because of the unusual environments and this game fell victim to that also. It wasn’t competitive either: Minnesota held an early 14-10 lead, but Louisville ripped off a 19-2 run. The Gophers didn’t get the deficit to two possessions for the rest of the game.

In the end, Louisville won because Rick was playing with a stacked deck: future lottery pick Montrezl Harrell was outstanding – efficient, with 30 points on 17 shot equivalents – and showcased not only his aggressive and physical interior play, but a good-looking jump shot as well. Minnesota’s backcourt of Deandre Mathieu and Andre Hollins is great in its own right, but they were simply outclassed by Chris Jones and Terry Rozier. Few teams have a guard tandem that can defend like those two and even fewer have a big man who’s comparable to Montrezl Harrell.

2. #lukewarm #gopher #takes

Not a whole lot can be drawn from a game like this – Louisville might be the best team Minnesota faces all year and the game was in a structure built to store helicopters in the Caribbean.

Still, a few observations:

Mo Walker > Elliott Eliason. Minnesota’s senior center tandem split the minutes evenly, but Walker got the start and outplayed Eliason against the Cardinals. Louisville didn’t bother to double Walker on post-ups, and he took advantage – he also ran the floor well in transition and had a nice drive-and-dish from the perimeter.

The four spot was a disaster. Understandable, when guarding Harrell, but the Gopher four men struggled on offense (against a zone) as well. Joey King should hold down the position but he didn’t play well and Bakary Konate, Charles Buggs, and Josh Martin didn’t impress in relief.

Nate Mason should contribute this year. Minnesota’s freshman guard had an unenviable opponent in his first college game, but he held up decently well: 10 points (but four missed free throws), 5 rebounds, 2 assists (and 2 turnovers). Pitino should just rotate Mathieu, Hollins, and Mason at the two guard spots.

Auto-benching Mathieu was stupid. When Deandre Mathieu picked up his second foul at 9:21 remaining in the first half, Louisville led by just three points – when he got back after halftime, the lead was thirteen. Mathieu didn’t play particularly well but he had just 3 fouls per 40 minutes last season and didn’t foul out anyways. Don’t automatically bench guys.

Other than that: Andre Hollins looked good and Carlos Morris didn’t; The hyper-aggressive Louisville trapping zones and half-court 2-3 zone gave Minnesota a ton of problems (and it’s easy to foresee the younger Pitino molding the Gophers into a defense like that in time); Minnesota’s jerseys were awful.

As can be seen in the table, Michigan is second to Purdue in missed starts, updated through Saturday’s game. The third column takes starts lost (SL) divided by games played (GP). I’ve changed the methodology a bit due to popular demand and explain the changes below.

GP

SL

%GM

Non QB

QB

Steele

Adj

Purdue

10

65

6.5

39

0

26

Michigan

10

64

6.4

46

0

18

Maryland

9

46

5.1

46

0

18

-18

Minnesota

9

43

4.8

27

1

15

Northwestern

9

43

4.8

16

0

27

OhioState

9

37

4.1

14

9

12

2

Rutgers

9

37

4.1

28

0

9

Indiana

9

35

3.9

13

2

20

Nebraska

9

33

3.7

24

0

9

PennState

9

33

3.7

13

0

20

0

Wisconsin

9

30

3.3

22

4

4

Illinois

9

25

2.8

14

4

7

MSU

9

23

2.6

13

0

10

Iowa

9

20

2.2

19

1

0

I calculated the total of starts lost (SL) as the sum of four columns.

Non QB counts starts lost as previously. For every player with at least one start, I sum up across players the difference between the number of games the team played versus the number of games the player appeared in. This is calculated only for non quarterbacks and is non-edited, so it should be replicable.

QB counts the starts lost by quarterbacks. The second table presents the relevant data. Lunt, Sudfeld, Rudock, Leidner and Stave had verifiable injuries. I’m counting Stave’s yips as missed starts for the first four games. I assume that games not played by the others were coaches’ decisions. Yes, Morris had an injury, but I don’t think he not playing in the games after Minnesota truly represents lost games by starters. Ohio State’s 9 lost starts are Braxton Miller.

The third column, Steele, is a response to previous comments. This lists all the games “lost” by players that were thought to be starters preseason but haven’t started a game yet. (Preseason starters who started a game but also missed some games are already counted in the Non QB column.) I used Phil Steele’s preseason magazine as I wanted a consistent, easily available source. The third table presents all the Steele starters who didn’t start a single game so far, how many games they played, and hence the games missed. All of this is unedited and therefore should be easily replicable.

The fourth column represents some sensible adjustments I made to three teams.

Steele lists two freshmen as starters on the offensive line for Maryland, but Gray and Prince appear to be headed for redshirts. So, it doesn’t seem like their missed games should be counted.

The NCAA data count Noah Spence as having started a game and played in two. Hence, the rest of the games he missed are counted in the Non QB column. But, a poster said that he didn’t play in those games that the NCAA thinks he appeared in. So I added 2. If I’m wrong, let me know.

I made offsetting adjustments to Penn State. Thompkins is listed as a starter by Steele, but he’s headed for a redshirt. So, I subtracted the 9 missed games. On the other hand Diefenbach wasn’t listed as a starter by Steele because he knew he was out before publication. But, it seems like those should be counted anyway, so I added back 9.

Kicking off a weekly Big Ten hoops column highlighting ten—not fourteen—of the most interesting teams, games, players, storylines, and statistics in the best basketball conference in the country.

1. The Big Ten has an enormous middle class

Wisconsin’s clear status as the frontrunner is the strongest preseason narrative surrounding the Big Ten and while the Badgers are compelling in their own right (aside from their unaesthetic style, of course), there’s another storyline that may not be getting enough attention: the middle of the Big Ten is as strong as ever and the fight for survival in the morass of teams directly behind Wisconsin will provide quality, reasonably high-stakes basketball on a near-nightly basis.

There are the Badgers, and there’s everyone else—you could take Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Ohio State and put them in almost any order, 2-through-8 looks so fluid in the Big Ten. To the point, Ken Pomeroy’s ratings have one team in the top ten (Wisconsin), but eleven in the top forty. Dan Hanner’s projections corroborate: Wisconsin—and nobody else—is in the top ten, but there are five in the top 25 and nine in the top 40.

It’s unlikely that there will be eleven of fourteen teams in the top forty by season’s end—Indiana (26) and Purdue (40) immediately stand out as overrated by Pomeroy’s system—but there should be a great number of enjoyable games between the middle-tier teams. That should be the biggest intriguing thing about the league this season: the title race likely won’t be very suspenseful, but the jockeying for position in the standings (and eventually on the seed lines for the NCAA Tournament) will be fascinating. The Big Ten will be a conference of staunchly upper-middle class teams this season—filling new subdivisions along artificial lakes and living the American Dream.

2. Top-40 Kenpom teams often make the tournament

Since the tournament expanded from 65 to a nonsensical 68, only two top-forty teams per season were excluded from the NCAA Tournament. Of those, Wichita State—ranked 59th entering the tournament—won the NIT, Stanford—ranked 53rd—won it, Baylor defeated Iowa in the NIT final, and SMU lost in the final (to Minnesota) last season.

Pomeroy’s preseason top-forty has eleven Big Ten teams (Wisconsin 6, MSU 12, OSU 14. Michigan 15, Indiana 26, Iowa 32, Maryland 33, Nebraska 34, Minnesota 37, Illinois 38, Purdue 40) and, because of the inevitable cannibalization that comes along with the zero-sum nature of conference play, it’s essentially impossible for all of those teams to finish that highly. Still, the above chart is illustrative of a basic implication in Pomeroy’s ratings: the Big Ten probably has a lot of tournament-caliber teams and monitoring which ones fall on the right and wrong sides of the NCAA bubble will surely be a compelling late-season storyline.

MSU loses soundly; OSU losing soundly; we are trounced. Elsewhere, B1G teams lose or sneak past weak small-conference squads. The onslaught from the critics is going to be merciless tomorrow. I'm not sure there's been a weekend this humiliating that I can remember.

I can't believe I am rooting for an OSU miracle at this late hour to salvage the conference's reputation.